There exists a variety of landscape edging products in the marketplace, my earlier U.S. Pat. No. 4,628,632 being a representative example of a product that is widely known. Landscape edging products are made of aluminum strips and aluminum staking, as well as plastic strips and metal staking. It is a well-recognized problem with landscape edging products, particularly in colder climatic areas, where freezing and thawing cause the ground to heave in response to temperature variations between freezing and thawing. Such ground movements have the tendency to force landscape edging out of the ground over time. It is, of course, desirable not to have the landscape edging products gradually move upwardly out of the ground as the ground heaves. One way of solving this particular problem is to allow for relative movement between joined edging strips as taught in my aforesaid earlier patent. In the arrangement, however, the top of the stake is visible and creating the end-to-end connection is not always convenient.
It is the usual practice among landscape architects to first assemble the edge strips alongside of the trench into which the edging strip is to be placed. This procedure gives the landscape architect an opportunity to visualize the arrangement and place any required bends into the edging strip before the edging strip is laid into the trench. However, there exists a problem associated with known edging strip assemblies, and this is particularly true with my earlier issued U.S. Pat. No. 4,628,632 and is also true with respect to U.S. Pat. No. 5,020,272, namely, when the edging strips are connected end-to-end and oriented alongside the trench, an effort to move the connected edging strips into the trench will oftentimes result in the edging strips becoming disconnected. Accordingly, it is desirable to provide an interconnection feature between the edging strip sections which will not become disconnected as the edging strip is moved outside of the trench therefor.
Accordingly, it is an object of this invention to provide a landscape edging assembly which is capable of effecting a joining of a pair of elongated strips end-to-end and enabling such end-to-end connected sections to move slightly relative to each other to compensate for ground movements that may occur.
It is a further object of the invention to provide a landscape edging assembly, as aforesaid, which is easy to assemble with a minimum of instruction.
It is a further object of the invention to provide a landscape edging assembly, as aforesaid, which has structure on the edging strip which operatively cooperates with structure on a stake to facilitate an interlock between the stake and the edging strip as the stake is driven into the ground.
It is a further object of the invention to provide a landscape edging assembly, as aforesaid, wherein the relationship between the stake and the edging strip is such as to facilitate relative movement between joined ends of the elongated strip in response to heaving of the ground.
It is a further object of the invention to provide a landscape edging assembly, as aforesaid, which orients the ground engaging stake on a side of the edging strip remote from paver stones or the like so as to allow the edging strip to fit tightly against the paver stones.
It is a further object of the invention to provide a landscape edging assembly, as aforesaid, wherein the end-to-end adjoined edging strips are easily spliced together in a manner such as to eliminate stakes at the joint, thereby greatly reducing labor during installation.
It is a further object of the invention to provide a landscape edging assembly, as aforesaid, wherein the upper end of the ground engaging stake is oriented below the top edge of the edging strip to give the assembled landscape edging assembly a uniform appearance without any of the ground engaging stakes being visible.
It is a further object of the invention to provide a landscape edging assembly, as aforesaid, wherein each of the adjoined strips include longitudinally extending ribs and grooves which are forced into engagement with one another to provide an intersplined relationship thereby keeping the joined together ends in longitudinal alignment with one another.
It is a further object of the invention to provide a landscape edging assembly, as aforesaid, wherein several edging strip sections can be connected together alongside the trench into which the edging strips are to be placed, which connection is secure and will not become disconnected as the edging strips are moved from a position alongside the trench to a position within the trench.
It is a further object of the invention to provide a landscape edging assembly, as aforesaid, wherein the edging strip sections can be securely connected end-to-end without the necessity of additional fastening elements.
It is a further object of the invention to provide a landscape edging assembly, as aforesaid, wherein the edging strip sections can be connected together without the employment of additional fastening elements and while the edging strip sections are located in the trench provided therefor.
It is a further object of the invention to provide a landscape edging assembly, as aforesaid, which is of a heavy-duty construction to enable the finished product to withstand significantly high loads applied thereto during and following installation.